Verstappen took advantage of the jousting to slip by Vettel.

Verstappen is 46 points adrift of Hamilton in the standings. Vettel fell to fourth at 48 points back.

Bottas had shown more speed in practice and in qualifying than Hamilton, when Bottas set a scorching track record that was 0.6 seconds faster than Hamilton's best effort.

But Bottas' chances for victory were sunk by his poor start, when his wheels appeared to spin while Hamilton immediately made up the difference.

"It was pretty tight (at the first curve), but I lost it at the start," Bottas said. "I felt some strange behavior with the clutch. I lost it there.